Growing up in Greater Manchester feels like living at the edge of the world. All the interesting people and cool events are happening just beyond your reach, beyond the limitations of your postcode. The music, the towering Mancunian icons, born half an hour away from the house you grew up in, make you feel like you can be a part of it, too. I remember driving to Barton Street and Macclesfield Cemetery a few years ago, to see Ian Curtis’s home and memorial stone, to prove to myself that he really existed. I never can believe that the person who created “Love Will Tear Us Apart” lived at the edge of the world, too, in a house that looks just like mine.

This seven-mile degree of separation lives at the heart of Carol Morley’s (The Falling, Typist Artist Pirate King) newest film, 7 Miles Out. The film, based on Morley’s autobiographical novel of the same name, follows Ann (Lucy Halliday: The Testaments), a teenage girl growing up in Stockport, Greater Manchester, as she finds her identity in the post-punk and new wave scene. Like many of the women around her, Ann’s life is marked by the men she loses, most substantially by her father (Aidan Gillen), who takes his own life after dropping Ann off at school one morning, and Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis, who took his own life on the eve of superstardom.

We stay with Ann throughout primary school, her teenage years and into young adulthood, and watch as he discovers and rediscovers, invents and reinvents who she is. We’re met with a headstrong young girl, who interviews her family members, particularly her music-obsessed older brother, with a cassette recorder for an imaginary audience, demonstrating an early passion to understand what’s going on in the minds of the people around her. When Ann’s life is changed by loss, her social standing at school falters, lumping her with the school’s social outcast, Helen (Leila Entwistle). The two become outcasts together, sporting haphazardly applied eyeliner and questionable hairstyles. The bullying, taunts, and troubling home environments they both face seem so quiet when they’re in each other’s company.

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The greatest love a girl can have is the one she shares with her best friend. The second is the love she feels when she discovers her favourite band. We see Ann and Helen share formative experiences: scheming their way into a Joy Division concert, having their first awkward experiences with boys, deciding to start a band together. Morley depicts these moments so lovingly that they feel like a distant memory. There’s a moment when Ann and her friends dance together after failing to make it into the Russell Club to see Joy Division, music thumping out loudly behind a locked door just beyond their reach. In this private moment, the girls’ laughter and sense of rebellion feel so palpable; I could feel the ghost of my best friend’s hand in mine as we jumped around like lunatics on Manchester Academy’s sweaty dance floor at our first ever gig without our parents’ supervision.

Morley, who can be credited with the discovery of Florence Pugh, puts together a magnificent ensemble cast, filled with both recognisable British faces and heaps of fresh talent. Lucy Halliday, Leila Entwistle and Misha Mond (who plays Terri, another member of their fledgling band) are unbelievable, successfully carrying a feature film together so early in their careers. Each girl is uniquely crafted and carefully carried throughout the film. The acting is so bright and bold that each character begins to feel like a girl you used to know, or even a girl you used to be. Aidan Gillen as Ann’s father creates a mysterious figure, whose presence looms large over the film long after his character departs the screen. And Gemma Whelan (Game of Thrones), who plays Ann’s grieving mother, is sensational, delivering a disoriented turn, meaning the lines between mother and daughter are blurred substantially, and we’re never quite sure who is looking after who.

7 Miles Out is a deeply personal film, brimming with authenticity. So much so, it feels like grooves in a record, documenting a life defined by a soundtrack. Morley creates a tangible moment in time. The detail in her sets and costume design is so well captured, and her characters so well defined, that we can smell the cigarette smoke and feel Hooky’s bass reverberating through our bodies. It makes you feel nostalgic. It makes you miss the friends you had when you were fifteen years old.

The punkest thing a girl can do is become her authentic self, and within Morley’s film we see that process, and how difficult it is to find yourself when you’re marked by loss, stuck in the wrong location, and misunderstood by those around you. 7 Miles Out is a film about loss, friendship and how much of our identity can be found through music. Most importantly, it is a rebellious shove against all the places and people that tell you that you’ll never be who you want to become.

The most powerful moment of the film comes when Ann listens to an old cassette recording of her father. It reminds us that even when people are long gone, their music remains.

★★★★★

Played at London BFI Film Festival 2026 / Lucy Halliday, Leila Entwistle, Misha Mond, Aiden Gillen, Gemma Whelan / Cannon and Morley Productions / TBC